I think many will agree that there is a such thing as sexual immorality and that it is rampant. I suppose if one were a total nihilist then there is no such thing, but considering the importance of sex in the procreation of mankind, I think it is illogical to dismiss sex as unimportant and meaningless in and of itself.
Let us provide a little deductive reasoning to illustrate what morally disagreeable sex looks like:
- There are two consequences of sex: procreation and pleasure.
- Sex is not a requirement for individual human life, that is, like food or water, but is a requirement for the prolonging of the species. When I say sex is required, that is my meaning.
- Sexual pleasure is not a human need but a vain desire that amounts to nothing. We therefore dismiss pleasure; it is a meaningless consequence of sex.
- This leaves us with procreation as the only meaningful consequence and, in fact, only purpose in sex.
- If the purpose of sex is procreation, it follows that any sex had without the intention of procreation must be wrong. It is a misuse of nature.
Many people are not going to like these reasonings, because they have probably been taught in sex-ed or by their parents that protected sex is okay, but I believe it has been demonstrated that this simply isn’t natural. Pleasure-seeking, specifically vain pleasure-seeking that falls under the umbrella of sexually immoral acts, is not at all why people should have sex. If we were to admit pleasure as a good thing only rather than the good or bad thing that it really is, then we would approach the logical conclusion that the only things in life worth chasing after are money (which “buys” “pleasure”) and orgasm (which is pleasure).
Implications
If my reasoning is sound, then the implications are far-reaching. “Protected” sex, which is often even defended by weak Christians, becomes immoral since it makes sex nothing but pleasure; no child can result. Homosexuality is clearly and easily defeated on naturalistic grounds because no child can result of the sex. Even masturbation, since it gives pleasure but no child, is morally unacceptable.
I hate to admit that I learned anything in middle and high school, but it seems the sex-ed stuff was right all along: don’t have sex unless you are trying to make a baby. They meant it, of course, as a risk-management device, but it seems more ethically sound anyway.
A Weak Argument
“It’s about love!”
Yeah… sure. While I don’t want to get into the philosophical notions of love nor the modern bastardization of that word, I will say this: love is a verb. To love somebody, especially in the classically Christian tradition, has absolutely nothing to do with sex.
The Nature of Pleasure
Pleasure is as cruel a master as is pain. Just ask Plato,
“… Pleasure deprives a man of the use of his faculties quite as much as pain.” - Plato, The Republic Book III
Human rationality is what differeniates humans from simple-minded animals. Anything that damages or overwhelms that rationality, dehumanizes. It becomes obvious then, that sexual pleasure is not necessarily a good thing in itself since it can easily overpower the rational mind that does not recognize its own will. How many smart people do you know who turn into drooling imbeciles when they see an attractive person? This is animalistic behavior not befitting mankind.
As soon as man’s rationality is hijacked by sexual pleasure, he becomes a slave to that pleasure. If a man wants true freedom, he must free himself of the debilitating and enslaving desires, what the Faith calls sin. We, of course, cannot accomplish this by ourselves (hence Jesus), but that doesn’t allow us to shirk all moral responsibility since, all things being equal, we still have free will and we still suffer the consequences of our actions.
In the days before effective birth-control, sex meant children more often than not. Of course, sex also meant pleasure, but that clearly takes the backseat compared with the following pregnancy. With the invention of effective birth-control around a century ago, it became possible to subvert the natural consequence of sex, and use it as a tool for pleasure alone.
I’ll even argue further about what constitutes good pleasure and bad pleasure: protected, homosexual, or otherwise degenerate sexual pleasures are bad pleasures since they discord with natural order as shown above; sex between man and wife in the quest for offspring is a good pleasure since it not only accords with the natural order, but it is poetic, that is, creative.
Despite what all the free contraceptive billboards in my nearby town suggest, every human being is in complete control of their ability to reproduce or not through abstinence. If two people want a child, they can have sex; if they don’t, then they don’t have sex. There is no need for sexual pleasure, only a need for reproduction which is a human collective need rather than an individual need. No one ever died of lack of sexual pleasure despite cringy memes on the internet.
Contraception Conspiracy
What follows is speculation, but perhaps valuable speculation. What if contraception and other non-reproductive sexual methods are pushed upon middle and lower class people for a eugenical purpose concocted by the elitists? Perhaps there is an overclass of people that have an interest in keeping certain types of people’s population, either income-related or race-related, low. All that I am suggesting is that Planned Parenthoods are not just randomly placed. While that is the more extreme end of the birth-control spectrum, that is, abortion, there is still a light eugenical purpose in plain old condoms; contraceptives are a lot like toys for adults (kidults), they allow them to experience pleasure but no real responsibility. Its a lot like giving a child a plastic play hammer instead of a real hammer: the kid can have fun with it, but is not responsible enough to handle the real hammer and the real work it can accomplish.
In society before the 20th century, having children was considered a boon and not a bane. Children meant heirs to property, someone to care for the parents as they aged, and the continuation of the family bloodline among other benefits. Contrast this ancient yet enlightened view with that of modernity which makes children out to be useless consoomers and, God forbid, bad for the climate (seriously, just punch “kids bad climate” in a search engine and prepare to vomit a little). The idea that it is not just irresponsible to have children, but immoral to have children because of their future carbon footprint is nothing short of misanthropic lunacy.
In case I need to spell it out: The elitists don’t want you to have children! That’s why there are so many ways of preventing their conception and, when that fails, abortion.
Keep It Traditional
As I discover everyday, traditional views and opinions on most subjects still end up being more morally right than modern views. This most certainly applies to sex. While the ancients didn’t have effective contraception as we do, I’d wager that the better part of them wouldn’t be interested, because those people wanted children. Any society that is openly hostile to children or the reproduction of children is very sick indeed.
And there we arrive at the crux of the issue: sexual morality is determined entirely by how the sex accords with the natural world, and it seems there is only one way which is correct, which is to produce a child (or at least intend to, but fail) within the traditional monogamous marriage. It becomes clear that protected sex, homosexual sex, and other degeneracies are vain pleasure; they produce nothing of value, and distract us with overwhelming bad pleasures, which, if I may be so dramatic, subvert human rationality itself, making us into stupid animals that cannot control their own impulses.
To engage in any of these anti-natalist activities except abstinence seems to me to violate the very basics of natural law and to spit in the face of Him Who said,
“Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it…” Genesis 1:28